ideas4all

This past March 4th saw the fifth edition of professional forum Rethinker: Women Decide.

These were the 8 speakers who took part in the conference and a link to the subject matter of each of their addresses:

Jane Cunningham & Philippa Roberts (“Dentro de su linda cabecita: Aprendiendo a pensar como una mujer”) (“Inside her cute little head: Learning to think like a woman”)

Avivah Witenberg-Cox, a consultant setting out the concept of womenomics (”Por qué ‘mujer’ significa ‘negocio’: una aproximación a la ‘Womenomics’”) (“Why ‘woman’ means ‘business’: an approach to womenomics”)

Ignacio Morgado (”¿Decidimos de forma diferente hombres y mujeres? “) (”Is decision-making different for men and women?”)

Alberto Pierpaoli, CEO of The Gender Group (”Como conectar con ese 51% del mercado que hace el 80% de las compras.”) (“How to connect with that 51% of the market that does 80% of the buying”)

Caroline Foster Kenny (”Engaging the Digital Native”)

Jesus Alonso, editor of blog Adwomen(” ¿Las creativas mujeres conectan mejor con la mujer consumidora? ) (”Do creative women connect better with women consumers?”)

Alfons Cornella, president of infonomia (”Lo que es women friendly, es people friendly”) (”Whatever is women friendly, is people friendly”)

Marti Barletta, expert in marketing for women (”Ganando con mujeres compradoras – El mayor poder de compra del mundo”) (”Winning with women shoppers – The greatest buying power in the world”)

Here are some of the concepts covered in the forum, that we collected from Twitter, Blogs and Social Networks:

Some Advertising Bilingualism must be put to practice, a language that can be understood by both genders. A high degree of masculinization can be observed currently, with women identifying very little with brands. Gender differences are there to be recognized, used and enjoyed.

”Women consumers disconnect from ads that don’t represent women in a realistic and credible way. Women must be shown to have more real perspectives, something they can identify with”

Taking into account that women are responsible for 80% of spending and 91% of buying decisions around the world, there is an obvious need for a greater presence of women in the world of communication, in order to connect with that target on a communicational and business level. “creative women are better equipped to connect with women consumers.”

Women have changed in the 21st Century, and it is important to learn to connect and communicate in their language, reviewing all strategies. The change experimented by women in the last years has been one of the most drastic. The new generation of young women (aged 15 to 24) has grown in the Internet era, these new digitally native women are not only consumers, but are looking to play a more active role, while incorporating a marked female conscience. The new generation of digital women are more producers than they are consumers (even so, we consume more than 80%…)

“Many business men, creative directors, pay no attention to young creative women, thinking it will be of no avail: why motivate them, why listen to them, why take them into consideration, if the moment they decide to be mothers they’ll leave everything else aside?” Jesus Alonso
“When men think of buying a product, they do so by a process of elimination: they are lineal. Women do networking! We are more interested in the relations we can establish as a whole”

“And why do we empathize more? Three answers: 1. faced with stressful situations, women tend to comment on their fears and emotions (we are more communicative), 2. the decisions we make are guided more by the brain’s corpus collusum (the part connected to emotions and the intellect), 3. strategies are based on creating communities and paying attention to our surroundings, because, historically, we have been more vulnerable”

“The process of buying for women is like a spiral. Before deciding on something, they ask, look for opinions and feed on information. Their objective is to find the perfect answer, motivated by detail and planning”

“With a majority of women users, social networks have reinvented communication, turning it into an act of exchange, of sharing within a community. Brands must adapt to this new world.”

“Men and women have different frameworks of reference and strategies. While men are lineal, women are multi-task and prefer to work to the maximum of their capacity. Men prioritize and women maximize”

Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts stressed the importance of empathy. “Women tend to come closer to one another by empathizing, while men tend to be systematic”, Roberts explains.

The problem, according to Cunningham, is that “most organizations work systematically, and don’t use empathy, particularly in financial, automotive and technology services.

“In order to attract women, empathetic activities must be developed. Get into their shoes. Be a reflection of women’s interests in womens’ language”, says Cunningham. Roberts adds that we should create “an environment that makes them feel secure, use a language that makes them feel integrated in a community and communicate with them through their channels, but above all, act rather than speak, because actions speak louder than words”.

Rocío Bravo from ideas4all

Ideas4all, as it has done on other occasions, attended the monthly event organized by Innosfera. Here are a few brush strokes of what was said on a subject that is not very well known, Social Innovation.

Three speakers who, with their enthusiasm, managed to transmit their passion for social projects, and their personal vision on the originality and novelty that can be developed within the framework of social innovation. Whether their aim was to shake our social enterprising spirit or not, that is exactly what they did.

The conference got started with Alfonso Carlos Morales, patron and researcher for the ETEA Foundation for Development and Cooperation. (He writes a blog on “Social Innovation”, entitled “Cerillas en la Oscuridad” (“Matches in the Dark”).

With his clear, colorful and very photographic speech, he presented an historic outline of social issues up to the 20th century, with the appearance of micro-credits, recycling policies, open universities and organizations such as Amnesty International, among other subjects that have given a different meaning to social innovation, a new framework for these issues to become reality and gain strength in our society.

Alfonso knows the process one must go through within this environment well: first comes the visualization of the project, then a certain amount of opposition, until one achieves acceptance and diffusion. These are the systematic stages in the process of social innovation.

He shares examples of brands such as Rolex, who in 1976 organized awards for the discovery of innovative ways of achieving social well-being; these were the beginnings. The fact that Barak Obama has created an office for social innovation is a turning point, a paradigm change where these focal points become pioneers in the search for new solutions for this type of problems.

The Center created in Stanford University (USA), the Koll Centre (UK) and the CEPAL Fair (in Latin America) are some examples showing that social innovation is present, and looking to make an impact with results that solve social needs not included in companies’ balance sheets.

But how can we innovate in a product?

Alfonso describes 3 areas in which social innovation can be carried out.

.- Social innovation in territorial terms (COMMUNITY): This is the recovery of ancestral craftwork and activities (ecological agriculture among others), the integration of these in a process of economic and cultural sustainable development, and a space for communication with other generations. All of which entails a certain amount of inventiveness and knowledge of the market in order to achieve the right adaptational mechanics.

.- The Internet and ITC (THE WEB). Can become a reflection of various activities (culture, sports…), calling for talent through the use of 2.0 social networks to put activities into practice, that support solidarity with a global perspective.

Within this kind of 2.0 markets, many initiatives come from traditional business models (lucrative) that become social organizations, by benefitting from the Long Tail phenomenon.

.- Businesses as CORPORATE CITIZENS: Aligning social responsibility with the company’s main activity. One example is Inditex (shops with disabled employees).

Companies begin to develop social activities connected to their main activity, meaning these are no longer something that is peripheral to the company.

Social innovation seeks: autonomy (economic independence), Inclusion (human development), Environmental Sustainability, and of course, a more horizontal point of view, says Alfonso Carlos Morales.

The second speaker is María Zapata, she is Director of International Operations at Ashoka, a global organization that identifies and invests in innovative ideas by social entrepreneurs. A very important support for all those social entrepreneurs that are trying to launch enterprising ideas with one point in common: Innovation.

What is asked of these projects is that they generate a social impact through their idea, that these entrepreneurs have an enterprising vision and ability (perseverance). Ideas and people with a vocation to take them beyond their personal environment.

Certainly, as María says, for an entrepreneur to have an idea of such a calibre, it is essential for him or her to carry out a systematic analysis that results in a deep understanding of social innovation, allowing the entrepreneur to solve a real problem with his or her idea. What becomes clear to us, beyond any doubt, with her speech is that a social entrepreneur must have a social vocation.

Our last speaker, Cristóbal Colón, is President of  La Fageda, a Cooperative that employs people with mental disabilities, and that has become the third yoghurt manufacturer in Catalonia (Spain).

Specialized in work therapy, Cristóbal firmly believes in work as a dynamic element in helping people with this type of problem (physically disabled or mental patients without much to look forward to, who perceive themselves as being of no use). One must not forget that 90% of mental patients are unemployed.

He explains they have not used social marketing in their cooperative for two reasons: firstly to avoid the possibility of social rejection that could boycott their social project, and secondly because, for the activity to be truly therapeutic, employees had to feel they were involved in the project, and this could not be achieved by “promoting their insanity” but by making them feel responsible for the project and, therefore, for their own lives.

There is no doubt in our minds that, as he says, success in their work has been the best therapy for employees as special as these.

Cristóbal Colón reflects on the actions carried out by DANONE in the Indian market, adapting its products to the Indian population: “Business policy is currently being adapted; cooperation models with social entrepreneurs begin to surface and proliferate”.

Our three speakers confirm that a company can have economic success while fulfilling social objectives. We should do without the stereotypical idea of business and social intervention being incompatible, for it does nothing but consolidate the rejection of the social work sector for the business sector, and vice versa. Both sectors can work perfectly well, hand in hand.

The conference was entertaining, intelligent, with a great deal of sense of humor and a pinch of irony, capable of moving anyone with some sensibility.

We recommend a social vitamin injection with this video.

Rocío Bravo of Ideas4all

ideas4all iniciador

Last February 10th, in another edition of  Iniciador, Julio Alonso, founder of Weblogs, with 10 years’ experience as strategy consultant, spoke to us of his entrepreneuring experience, offering advice to anyone thinking of starting up a business.

Julio has a network of specialized content blogs (vertical or specialized publications on the Internet) with communities of users interested in the subjects covered. His other line of activity is consulting for companies in areas such as blogs, social networks and web 2.0.

His line of business, with over 37 blogs organized by subject (featuring the collaboration of over 200 bloggers), has over 14.3 million unique users every month and over 64.8 million pages viewed monthly. His blog has two types of readers he calls his family: The regulars (very well-read in his subject-matter) and parachutists (who are linked from google, an indispensable tool in creating new users).

Here are some brush strokes on the most interesting points of his intervention:

.- The risk of turning your idea into something real is something he considers inherent to any business project. Enterprising, he says, entails taking risks.

.- Tolerance to uncertainty is basic in this process and must be interiorized before one sets out on an entrepreneuring project.

.- Giving form to ideas, executing them while adapting, although that may entail having to charge your course of action, are steps we should not forget.

.- Start things at a small scale, test until confirming the market validates what you do, and then climb rapidly. A far from negligible piece of advice, given that many entrepreneurs become afraid and never manage to survive the early stages of activity; while others thing “so big” that their giant leaps seem to move them closer to a spectacular failure.
Risks in early stages should be very limited.

.- He who enterprises must know that being “multi-task”, having “multiple abilities”, being “multi-experienced” is an advantage because it allows us to surround ourselves by great professionals and make better decisions.

.- Knowing the market in which we operate is essential: who consumes our product and who is our competition. These are basic rules in any business plan, that are however often missing. It is a good idea to look back and review our project’s evolution.

.- Your company’s competitive advantage must be related to its capacity to innovate, evolve, and even change its initial model in order to adapt to what is demanded by the market; but we must remain realistic and not expect our company to cover each and every front. Making focus and flexibility compatible is essential.

.- Lastly, he speaks of something we were waiting to hear, something fundamental, a theory that has to be taken on by any entrepreneur: A PASSION for what we do and, of course, the ability to have fun while working.

And what about Social Networks? Are blogs, as an alternative, a threat?

“Social networks have an advantage in terms of demographic segmentation, but the fact that you can take your product to interested communities is a relevant factor in specialized publications that generic networks don’t have. They are, undoubtedly, complementary”.

According to Julio, an advantage blogs have is that each person can create his or her “own informational diet”.

And what about investors?

He recommends we launch our business without help because it is normal to have diverging objectives that force us to change our project’s strategy. If we are lucky enough to count with investors that are aligned with our own objectives while making capital and contacts available, as well as generating marketing capacity and transmitting confidence, we should feel very fortunate.

The ideal situation would be to work within a zero-cost structure, increasing our cost as we generate income.

And what about advertising?

Our entrepreneur and businessman believes in the Internet’s advertising potential, but accepts that Spain is lacking brand advertising because the right format or way of measuring results has not yet been found. There is a lack of innovation in this field.

Should we monetize, or as Julio says, pride ourselves on accepting donations?

“Some subjects attract a lot of interest but are difficult to make money with. Subjects with different potential advertisers than we are accustomed to. We must be enormously creative and observe the ability to create interest in brands.”

Do you compete in the traditional media sector?

He answers with a quote by Gandhi, “first they will ignore you, then laugh at you, then fight you, and finally you will win”.

He then convinces us with results:

“We have managed to generate better content. Cost structure models are lighter than in traditional media. We know that traffic is generated better than in traditional media, that the model works and evolves better. In terms of advertising, there is still much to do, and the traditional market has the advantage, but thanks to the potential of this new Internet industry, brands will become accustomed to new formats and different media”.

You can see a video of the event here.

Rocío  Bravo from Ideas4all

This last Saturday, February 27th, ideas4all attended the first edition of  Café&Periodismo, at which Pedro de Alzaga, vice-director of  Cuarto Poder and La cuenta atrás, and Alfonso Armada, editor of  Fronterad, shared their vision on the adaptation of journalism to a world marked by the Internet and new technologies. New media, new tools and a new way of presenting news, leaving traditional models behind.

Either speaker told us of their most immediate projects in a time of crisis, while journalism seems to, paradoxically, be living one of its sweetest moments. Their business projects might appear to be pure acts of faith, but what they in fact make clear is their own belief in a new way of seeing and understanding the world.

Theirs is quality journalism, getting through to the reader on the look-out for another type of information, a more serene and detailed reading.

Special thanks to Millán I. Berzosa and Bárbara Yuste, responsible for this much awaited and novel event, and for inviting us to attend.

If you missed the event, you can see it here, courtesy of Agoranews

Rocío Bravo from Ideas4all

Today sees the opening of  CeBIT 2010, one of the most important technology and telecommunications trade fairs, held in Hannover, Germany between March 2nd and 6th, 2010.

Attending the event’s inauguration will be German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, representing this year’s guest country, Spain. Spain was chosen as Partner Country “for its great development in the creation of the information society” coinciding with the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, throughout the first semester of 2010.

Spain will take part in CeBIT with the installation of 6 Spanish pavillions, containing Spanish companies in the sector (Software, Webciety , Green IT, Future Parc, Banca y Seguridad y Telecomunicaciones) and one institutional pavillion (representing the central Government and many Autonomous Regions). A central auditorium will also be installed, with the organization of conferences, exhibits and videos related to the ITC sector in Spain.

You can see the video of the opening ceremony here.

Rocío Bravo de Ideas4ll

The on-line marketing Fair/Conference, the meeting place for the digital marketing sector in Spain will take place in Madrid, on February 24th and 25th, at the IFEMA Trade Fair Park.

OME 2010 will count with the cooperation of experts from Spain and abroad, who will share their experience and explain case studies, as well as comment on subjects of interest within the areas of On-line Marketing, E-mail Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, E-commerce, Social Networks, Web Positioning, Web Analysis, and a long etc….

The exhibitors attending the fair will be Advertising agencies, Media agencies, Web Search Marketing agencies, Web Analysis experts, On-line content providers, Mobile Marketing Agencies, E-mail Marketing agencies, Performance Marketing agencies, E-Commerce agencies, Web Designers, On-line Games, On-line Purchases/Auctions, Associations

Access will be free for all visitors.

Rocío Bravo from Ideas4all

Ideas4all has been selected as one of the 20 finalists in the second edition of  BBVA Open Talent, after 45 days of voting during the selection phase.

Participation in this edition has been outstanding: more than 125,000 votes received and more than 2,100 comments on the 320 participating projects. This goes to show that the public supports entrepreneurs and their projects.

The 20 qualified projects will receive a prize and the most voted projects will qualify to enter an event taking place as part of  Salón Miempresa, on March 10th in Madrid.

The 10 most voted projects will be announced shortly. We hope to be one of them!

You can see the other finalists and their projects here

Rocío Bravo from Ideas4all

Jorge Bronet (in charge of the University of Catalonia in Madrid) and his brief introduction make the spirit of Innosfera’s series of conferences on Innovation clear: to share and cooperate, keys that open the door to innovation.

Once presentations were made, Jose María Zabala seduced with a very interesting title, and a format appropriate for any best seller: Decalogue of the innovative business:

.- To assume the process of innovation from the management down. Innovation must be the company’s strategy. A competitive factor that must be taken on by the company’s management.

.- Innovate always with the market in mind. If you do not make it to the market, there is no innovation…..

.- Face risks

.- Delegate and concentrate on know-how. Innovate, but in a planned and structured way, setting ambitious objectives.

.- Give form to ideas within projects for innovation.

.- Cooperate with companies and research institutions. Today, companies, research centers and universities, as well as administration and governments, are where innovation is generated.

.- Assign reasonable material and human resources.

.- Face the future by integrating a culture of innovation within the company.

To conclude his intervention, he rewards his audience with a sentence that, although true, leaves the room somewhat unsettled, “A country will be worth as much as its innovation”

After listening to the information offered by Jose María, the next speaker, Ana María Llopis, begins to speak serene and firmly, and as always, with a passion that is characteristic of someone who is sure of what she does and says.

A clear example of Innovation, and of crowsourcing, is her own company,  Ideas4all.

She speaks of the new paradigm that is upon us, and which she recognized some years ago. She offers data that, along with her presentations, gives us enough material for a future book. Her character has doubtlessly been formed by years of experience and training.

She encourages us to read Wikinomics, a book that has been inspirational for her project, ideas4all, and her presentations.

She has clearly recognized that consumers are not what they used to be. They have evolved, and wish to redesign their products, with their own distribution channels that accept no impositions…. There is therefore a clear process of disintermediation.

R+D departments are no longer enough. “Out of the box” thinking is becoming far more important in the strategic processes of companies.

Open Innovation must be open, dynamic and must “truly” be carried through. “Innovation must be real, or this “lack of authenticity” will be recognized and the company will lose its credibility”, says Llopis.

Crowsourcing and collective cooperation have shown they are a good way of solving problems.

Lastly, she tells us of how the ideas4all platform, using an Saas model, can help give new dynamism to companies’ and institutions’ internal and external innovation processes.

The experience with Sabadell is turning out to be a success. The non-anonymous nature of participants and the lack of censorship have been two premises that have made Sabadell’s employees identify with this project, and have turned this tool into a new voice that is being heard, reaching the high degree of cooperation that is being attained.

“The democratization and transparency present in idea generation and evaluation have given dynamism to innovation and inspired the community”.

After hearing this intervention, there is no doubt in my mind that this trend is unrestrainable, necessary, and appropriate in the time we are living.

Agustín Cuenca delights us with a refreshing and provocative presentation. A speach full of complicity towards his friend and colleague Ana María Llopis.

Agustín knows no other way to work other than innovating. When people within an organization are given the capacity to make a contribution, and this has an impact on the company, their contribution increases considerably. This is a proven fact.

He considers the problem to lie in the people that make up a company, and not in the technology or the capital. Mental barriers are real obstacles in a process of innovation.

Agustín not only theorizes on this concept but also gives us empiric clues for action:

CREATE COMMUNITY Create a community or look for one that already exists.

DIALOGUE Speak to users, don’t ignore them.

TRY Because, as Agustín says, when faced with complex problems, the old “Trial and Error” technique can be revealing.

We must work along the lines of open innovation:

TRANSPARENCY.- MERITOCRACY.- CONNECTION

An unanimous applause, showing innosfera’s audience agrees with these ideas.

Congratulations to the organizers of the event for the eminence of all speakers.

You can see the presentations here

Rocío Bravo of  Ideas4all

The first First Tuesday of the year took place last Tuesday at 7:30 pm at HYDE in Barcelona.

The event was very enriching, thanks to the presence of Marc Vidal, general director of Cink, Economics blogger in one of the most influential Economics blogs in Spain, corporate strategy consultant and author of the book “Crónica de una crisis anunciada” (”Chronicle of a crisis foretold”).

Mr. Vidal spoke of the perspectives for entrepreneurs and digital business in 2010, under the title “Economía del sueño”.

The event was open to entrepreneurs, as well as business angels, venture capital entities or companies interested in investing in sectors with great growth potential such as the Internet, the Media and New Technologies.

The next First Tuesday will take place in Madrid on Tuesday, February 9th,  2010 at 7:30 pm in LEMON, Av. Brasil, 5 . Pau Garcia-Milà, one of the youngest entrepreneurs in Spain, will be the evening’s speaker.
He founded Eyeos, the open source web desktop, which has now managed to sign agreements with important companies such as IBM.

Rocío Bravo from Ideas4all

The next edition of Innosfera will take place this coming Wednesday, February 3rd, at 7 p.m. at Fundación Blanquerna.

The “subject” on debate, very much in the forefront recently, is “Collective thinking and crowdsourcing as a source of innovation”. The speakers will be three professionals of recognized prestige with experience in the matter:

* Ana María Llopis: entrepreneur, founder of ideas4all. Has worked for Procter & Gamble, Banesto and Banca Santander where she started up OpenBank, is part of the supervising councils of ABN-AMRO, BAT, Service Point and of the Advisory Council for Electronic Administration in the Spanish Ministry of Public Service.

* Agustín Cuenca: CEO of ASPgems, is part of PymeCrunch. Founder of projects such as BeRuby.com or TDHA, he also collaborates with ongmania.org

* José María Zabala: Chemical Engineer and Doctor in Applied Natural Science from the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium), General Director of Zabala Innovation Consulting, founded in 1986, which has carried out research for the European Commission and the ministries of various governments. Is a collaborating member of Think Tank “Institución Futuro”.

* The sphere: all participants.

It is a reality that there is currently great interest in collective thinking. We are absolutely certain that Innosfera has made an effort to bring these three specialists in crowdsourcing trends together. We will be more than glad to take this opportunity to listen to three references in the matter.

Rocío Bravo from Ideas4all